Tag: Micropayments

Streaming services could get fans as close to their favorite artists as they get at SXSW. That’s Alabama Shakes in 2012.

Perhaps it’s the news cycle, the launch of the next-big-thing or just simply boredom with the topic, but it sure seems like we’ve forgotten the meme of artists getting ripped off by music startups.

Nearly all last year this was a huge topic with artist like Thom Yorke and David Lowery menacing pitchforks at Spotify and Pandora. One of the major problems with the streaming services is they can’t have a frank and honest conversation about how much they pay for their content. Because of their confidentiality agreements, they are bound to not discuss the financials of their deals with major labels. I’m sure it’s frustrating for Daniel Ek to pay out a billion dollars for the rights to music only to hear David Byrne call Spotify evil.

In December Spotify posted an extensive site that breaks down everything from the formula used to determine payments to specifically how artists are compensated. While the site lays it all out nicely, it kinda buries the real message to artists. The unsaid message goes something like, ‘We paid out a crapload of money for the music. But we don’t pay you directly. We pay the label, so go talk to them.’ Also it shows how future growth will make those moderate sized payments grow to gargantuan numbers, which you need to squint really hard to see.

Fair enough. At least when you consider music playback. But I don’t consider that enough and neither should artists. You see, streaming services really should be vibrant active communities of fans who love their favorite artists. But today, they most definitely are not. They are primarily flat, with stale boilerplate content and the charm of a filing cabinet. Even the recently launched Beats Music had nearly the same execution of artist pages as all the other services, (although I have seen some screenshots of a nice implementation of Topspin’s artist commerce in the app, so I’m assuming that the features will roll out soon).

What streaming services must do is find a way to authentically connect fans to the artists they love. And they should provide ways for the artist to directly speak to fans on their platforms. It’s one of the trickier problems for artists today. Fans are listening everywhere from Pandora to Spotify to Soundcloud to iTunes. But unless the fan reaches out directly through social channels or the artist’s website, they won’t know what the artist is up to. And if they’re not paying attention, a fan can miss it on those channels too.

Let’s take a “use case” as we say in product development. Let’s say I happen to be walking through Billy Reid on Bond Street and I ask the well-coiffed dude behind the counter what was that beguiling song emanating from the speakers. “Oh, that’s Lord Huron. Great band.” I pull out my smart phone, download it using my favorite streaming service and dig into it for the next week. But when I finally get around to checking out the band’s Facebook page for concert dates, sure enough they played in Seattle two nights before. Fail!

My service knows I like the band, since I’ve played it incessantly for the past few days. And since I have the app downloaded it also knows where the hell I am. So why can’t it suck in all the concert dates and let me know that I’m about to miss the band in a super small venue (The Crocodile in this case)? And maybe I couldn’t get to the Crocodile, but I should be able to buy a poster or a tee shirt, right? Maybe I want to connect directly to their @lordhuron and read all their updates while I listen. And why can’t it look at all the other verified @artist tags that Lord Huron is following to give me a list of bands that I might like?

Let’s keep in mind, my use case is of an, um, older demographic. There’s a whole generation of fans who crave direct connections with artists and their needs have yet to be defined. There is so much discovery work that needs to be done to figure out what those products and offerings should be. We’re just getting started on what the best product will look like and what people will need.

Services need to shift the way they are thinking about artist engagement. It’s not just a place where fans listen to music. It should be a place that unites the information and offers from artists to create a unified solution for the fan and also be a platform for artists to market directly to the fans that care most about them.

The bad PR streaming receives right now is because they haven’t scaled enough to make up the revenue difference in flagging physical and digital sales, and these services are hot so they become the punching bag. But the services do have the superfan, the ones that live and die for the artist. They might still buy all the band’s CDs. They make it a priority to see the band when they roll through town. They might even buy a $1500 ticket to take a cruise or travel long distances to see a festival.

Solving this problem should be one of the top priorities for every service out there. Until the day that happens, we’ll be talking about the micropayments for plays and waiting for scale. I’m sure this is discussed at every service, as we used to talk about it all the time. There have been a few early initiatives, like Spotify’s integration of Topspin commerce into their desktop applications or Rhapsody linking Bandpage’s Experiences within their apps, it hasn’t been focused on mobile and personal, which are the two key ingredients for the fan to take action. Addressing those valuable modes will power increased engagement and, hopefully, revenue.

Trust me, I know all too well the jammed up product roadmaps that services must juggle. There multiple competing projects all the most urgent priority. But completing this work will go a long ways toward changing the conversation and building new value for both artists and streaming services.